Saturday, December 28, 2013

Why bother having elections when activist judges can just overrule them?

Last month, voters in Seatac, Washington - which includes Seattle-Tacoma International Airport - approved a referendum to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour and give workers paid sick leave. The measure was approved largely because the airport has so many low-paying service jobs.

But now King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas has ruled that the measure doesn't apply to airport jobs. Her reasoning is that the city of Seatac doesn't have jurisdiction over the airport. Uh, yes it does. The airport is within Seatac city limits. I don't think my Rand McNally is lying about that.

One of the leading plaintiffs in the suit to overturn the wage hike was Alaska Airlines. Now I know of an airline to boycott in case I ever take up commercial air travel.

Why even have cities when they're not even allowed to enforce their laws? This is further evidence of why the Community Rights Movement is needed now more than ever - and why city authorities must back it up. The city of Seatac should ignore the judge's ruling and enforce the wage increase the way the referendum says - even if that means police are necessary to enforce it.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Meet longtime Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California). The man is a total slob.

Back in 2010, Rohrabacher began renting a huge mansion for $3,350/month. The 4-bedroom home was immaculate when he moved in, and the carpeting was brand new.

Now it turns out that in 2012 - when Rohrabacher moved out - he left the place a toxic waste dump. After only 2 years, the carpeting was ruined by mysterious muck. The outdoor plants had been left to die. Walls were covered with nail polish and possibly feces. The toilet seats in all 4 bathrooms were broken. The sinks were clogged by what appeared to be burst balloons. The wooden chair in the back yard had been smashed to smithereens, and there were maggots under the stove.

Rohrabacher-linked damage added up to over $25,000. The landlord billed the congressman for the damage, but Rohrabacher refused to pay it.

But now Rohrabacher is suing the landlord for not giving him back his security deposit. He's also threatened to enlist the local district attorney - a longtime Rohrabacher crony - to launch a criminal investigation against the landlord.

I guess it's just like how Rohrabacher said Iraq should pay back the United States for launching a war against it.

Here's another story of fascist injustice, this time in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Authorities there arrested a woman this week for allegedly posting a "threat" against her teenage son's school on Facebook. She now faces up to 5 years in prison.

But what prompted this "threat"? It was prompted by the fact that her son kept getting harassed at school, and the school wouldn't do anything about it. In one incident, her son was physically assaulted, which caused a head injury that led to epilepsy.

Although the woman was charged, the spoiled brats who assaulted her son were of course not charged. Maybe they're using the affluenza defense.

Or maybe things are still just like they've been for decades, meaning the official policy is - without exception - to not punish serial harassers for any of their behavior and to blame their victims instead. Victim-blaming is, after all, one of the defining traits of fascism.

The American landscape is littered with countless cities, towns, and counties that use an illegal device to keep people out based on their economic status. I know this, because I've experienced it firsthand. But very few are actually blatant about it like the town of Miner, Missouri.

Back in September, a homeless couple was chased out of town by police. Cops threatened to arrest them for vagrancy unless they completely left town within 5 minutes. Now the couple is suing in federal court.

For starts, vagrancy laws were ruled unconstitutional a half-century ago. For another thing, the city clerk admits that the town doesn't have a vagrancy ordinance, and that police showed the couple a law that doesn't even exist.

Instead of fighting futile wars in Afghanistan, the President needs to deploy the military to enforce the Constitution in Miner and other American locales that violate the public's basic rights. Sometimes, the only thing that gets through to the Far Right is tough executive action.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

I'm no more opposed to Chris Christie than I'm opposed to the rest of the Republican clown car, but it's kind of amusing that this is happening to the man who had been widely touted as the Republicans' savior.

A new report by Sarah and Christopher Lubienski reveals that students in America's public schools actually outperform their private school counterparts. This data comes from the National Assessment on Educational Progress.

After the Brossart debacle, this doesn't shock me in the least bit. Truth is, many private schools aren't exactly big on accepting science.

Now will the school privatization lobby in Ohio and other states stop giving unconstitutional taxpayer bailouts to failing private schools?

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The party that tries to tell Americans how to live their lives is at it again.

Thirty-five-year-old Ryan Loskarn - a rising star in the Republican Party who served as chief of staff for Tea Party Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) - has been arrested on child pornography charges.

Before working in Alexander's office, Loskarn was the staff director of the Senate Republican Conference.

If you still think the rich aren't being let off the hook just because they're rich, and that they're worthy of sheer praise just because of their affluence, shut your shit-caked little mouth now.

Ethan Couch is a 16-year-old spoiled brat in the Dallas area who drove drunk at 3 times the legal blood-alcohol limit with Valium in his system. While doing 70 MPH in a 40 MPH zone after consuming stolen beer, he hit and killed 4 people. Ten other people were injured too. One of the injured is now paralyzed for life and can communicate only by blinking. After killing or injuring all these folks, Ethan trudged away from the cops, declaring, "I'm outta here!"

Prosecutors sought 20 years in prison. But District Judge Jean Boyd gave Ethan only probation, even though he continues to show a complete lack of remorse. Why did Ethan Couch get let off easy? Because the defense said he was "a product of wealth" accustomed to getting whatever he wanted, so jail would be too much of an adjustment.

Jail isn't designed to be fun. Do the crime, do the time.

Defense attorneys also argued that he should be let off the hook because his parents taught him that wealth entitled the rich to do whatever they wanted. Yes, that literally was their defense.

Also, it turned out that Ethan's parents allowed him to drive when he was only 13 - even though he wasn't legally old enough. Sounds like a Brossart kid!

If he was poor, he'd get the chair. No question about it.

The rich just don't think like we do. They've had everything handed to them their whole lives, so they think rules don't apply to them.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A scandal involving a Republican politician in Kentucky? What is this? A day ending in y?

Yesterday, Morgan County Judge-Executive Tim Conley was taken into federal custody, charged with a kickback scheme involving a bridge contractor. He faces mail fraud, theft, and money laundering charges. If convicted, he may face decades in prison.

In Fox News fashion, I've seen at least one media report that misidentified Conley as a Democrat. Nope, he's a Republican.

Also, several years ago, Conley was pardoned by then-Gov. Ernie "Hey Bert" Fletcher after Conley was indicted on 3 counts of abuse of public trust in a different scandal.

The real question is, do the Democrats have the sense to take advantage of the ongoing public stupidity exhibited by the Republicans? Or are they gonna start complaining about "dirty" video games again like it's 1996?

Meet far-right whack-a-doodle Suzanne Miles. She was the Republican candidate for a special election for Kentucky House in the 7th District today.

The 7th District is 3-to-1 Democratic, and it's in the state with the most successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act. So it's a Democratic lock, right? Wrong! Not with The Media around!

It didn't help that the Democrats picked a DLCer, but when the Republicans choose what was arguably the most right-wing candidate they could possibly dredge up, the DLC effect should be negated. How extreme is Suzanne Miles? For starts, Miles ran on enacting a union-busting "right-to-work" law - an idea that's demonstrably unpopular in western Kentucky. In addition, she ran against Medicaid expansion - an aspect of the health care law that's been proven to be overwhelmingly popular in every poll.

Miles - a staffer for right-wing U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie - has vowed to keep her job in Guthrie's office. This despite the fact that it would be illegal to keep that job while serving in the legislature. But rules don't apply to Republicans. We all know that.

Will Miles hang on in 2014, when all seats in the Kentucky House are up? No doubt that she'll just double down in her discredited ideas. Extremist nuts like this who make Geoff Davis look like Bernie Sanders in comparison always do. The overall decline of the Republicans won't exactly work in her favor, especially since she won this time by all of 112 votes (out of 7,000 cast).

Monday, December 9, 2013

Helpful hint for our friends in the Lone Star State: Unbeknownst to many, Texas law requires public schools to allow kids to opt out of school uniform policies if they have a religious or philosophical objection.

This webpage has the form you can fill out if you're in San Antonio...

Just scroll down to where it says, "PARENT REQUEST REGARDING A UNIFORM REQUIREMENT."

Where the form tells you to provide your objection, simply state that uniforms violate the Tinker v. Des Moines ruling.

Notice also that this form has had more downloads than the one to apply for financial assistance to buy uniforms. You can tell from the classroom photos on the website that nobody gives a shit about the stupid uniform policy.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Now that we've established that there's no way in hell the Evil Empire can repeal the Affordable Care Act using legislative means at any time in the next 3 years, another threat to this law looms on the horizon. This threat is judicial.

Oklahoma's fascist Attorney General Scott Pruitt - with support from the Tea Party - is leading a series of lawsuits to gut Obamacare by trying to get courts to make it illegal for the government to give people subsidies. These subsidies let folks buy insurance in the 34 states that haven't set up their own health insurance exchanges. The subsidies are an Obamacare centerpiece. If the subsidies go, the whole law effectively goes.

If the Democrats had any spine, they'd threaten to impeach judges who rule in Pruitt's favor - for there is no legal basis for such a ruling. But in the absence of Democratic gumption, "we, the people" must be the boss.

In the meantime, this website breaks down Affordable Care Act signups by state (though most of the states without their own exchanges haven't provided new numbers since October)...

This poll is a clarion call for unyielding enforcement of the public's will.

For all the people who have signed up for Obamacare and have already benefited from it, how will they react if a right-wing activist judge robs it from them? The Far Right is an enemy of America, an enemy of humanity, and an enemy of nature, and we need to have the courage to tell it like it is.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

If Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was alive today, he wouldn't be spinning in his grave, because he'd still be alive. But he is spinning in his grave.

Regnery Publishing - a far-right publishing house known for a complete lack of scholarship in any of its recent books - has now licensed Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts kick-ass crew to hawk right-wing propaganda to children. Regnery plans to use Peanuts characters for a set of right-wing children's books called the "Little Patriot" series.

Somehow I doubt Schulz would have authorized his comic strip to be abused in such a manner.

What's ironic is that one of the main themes in Peanuts was repeated defeat. Kind of like what conservatism represents. So the joke's on Regnery.

After being detained as a political prisoner for 27 years, Mandela went on to become President of South Africa.

If anyone thinks we should just give up at all the work we've been involved in, Mandela's experiences should prove otherwise. The only way we're going to win the fights we've been fighting is to keep at it.

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